Limestone quarries ruin Gunungkidul's beauty

Bambang M and Gigin W Utomo, Contributors, Yogyakarta

Hilly Gunungkidul is often stereotyped as a barren land where life is tough when the prolonged dry spell causes a severe drought in many subdistricts, notably the coastal south.

In the world of science, Gunungkidul is internationally famed for not only its traces of prehistoric man, but also its chain of gorgeous, cone-shaped karst that one Western scientist has said is found nowhere else on the planet.

The karst cones, green during the wet season and reddish during the dry, form a chain in the southern coastal areas down to the east, ending in Pacitan, an East Java town bordering Central Java province.

"The cones form wet tropical karst that locals call Pegunungan Sewu (Thousand Mountains)," said E.T. Paripurna, a lecturer at Yogyakarta-based UPN Veteran University's School of Geology.

Composed mostly of carbonate stones, the mountain range starts in Oya River in the subdistrict of Wonosari. It stretches some 85 kilometers to Pacitan. With an average width of some 25 kilometers, the mountain range covers an area of some 2,000 square kilometers of land.

Comprising some 50,000 karst hills, Pegunungan Sewu boasts breathtaking landscape.

The conical karst that MacDonald and Partners of the British Cave Research Association once referred to as the best in the world is, in fact, just one aspect of the beauty it offers.

Gorgeous caves, along with its underground rivers and the great varieties of exokarst (surface karst) and indokarst (underground karst) won Pegunungan Sewu the status of a World Natural Heritage Site in 1994 from the International Union of Speleology.

Unfortunately, all the beauty is in the process of destruction, as limestone quarrying is a growing industry in the region.

It is true that locals have been quarrying limestone using traditional equipment for as long as people can remember, but major concern began only in the 1990s when big business arrived with sophisticated technology. The large-scale exploitation of karst is all legal. The businesses have the requisite permits from the Gunungkidul regency government.

The karst is used as a component in various products, such as fertilizer and cosmetics, and also for making works of art like statues.

Environmentalists fear that if the current trend continues, there will be no karst hills left because the regency government sees the quarrying project as a major source of income as part of the regional autonomy. Gunungkidul, which has a population of 736,000, is among the poorest regencies in Indonesia with a per capita income of Rp 1.3 million (about US$153).

"Limestone quarrying is a business with good prospects that can jack up local government income," said Sumedi, chief of Gunungkidul government economic affairs office.

Sumedi's view explains why the local administration has been allowing investors to exploit the karst. So far, 13 companies have entered the business.

So, over the past few years, the beautiful karst hills have disappeared, one by one. In many places, there are pathetic sights to be seen: lime hills being blasted.

Many companies are so negligent they have abandoned their quarries without refilling the resultant pits once the hills have been removed. They simply ignored the government's requirement that the pits be refilled and trees be planted there.

The businesspeople also ignored a legal requirement for an environmental impact assessment before starting their project.

The exploitation of the conical karst hills has undeniably caused damage to the environment. Many have questioned if the tax revenue is worth all the environmental destruction.

In the 2002 budget, the income from karst quarrying was set at Rp 132 million, far below the Rp 640 million from tourism.

Environmentalists say that the removal of the limestone hills, which hold water during the rainy season, will only worsen the annual water crisis in the region because the rainwater will seep into the many underground streams and empty into the sea.

Signs of the disappearance of groundwater have been obvious in, for example, Kajar village, near the main town of Wonosari, where locals have found it difficult to obtain water after the karst hills in the region were quarried.

However, deputy head of Gunungkidul water supply company (PDAM) Isnawan said that the quarrying activities had not yet affected the water sources PDAM manages but was sure that they would eventually be affected in the future.

Other negative impacts of the quarrying activities include an increase in the level of lime in the groundwater that most residents consume.

Under increasing pressure to review its quarrying policy, the Gunungkidul administration is working in partnership with Gadjah Mada University to identify zones: which areas may be exploited and which not.

Paripurno said that karst quarrying should be carefully managed and only limestone in flat areas should be allowed, while exploitation of hills should cease.

"Caves and places where underground streams run should not be quarried," he said.

The Gunungkidul administration has also been advised to take good care of the karst hills and turn them into tourist attractions, which would be more sustainable and profitable, as previous experience has shown.